


A Wolf in the Club

by oonaseckar



Category: Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/M, Gen, Gentlemen's Club, M/M, Victorian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Stiles is in service, in a discreet gentlemen's club in Victorian Beacon Hills.  You know, a club for thetoffs.  For the wolves.He meets a mysterious lupine gentlemen.  Well, of course he does.
Relationships: Adam Hauptman/Mercy Thompson, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski/Bran Cornick
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	1. right to command

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from Jane Eyre.

In the shadows of the Circe Club, for Gentlemen of a Lupine Persuasion, something stirs amongst the leather wing-back chairs, the library shelves and the highly-polished walnut occasional tables, loaded with silver decanters and glasses of port. And Stiles – a recently hired member of staff, twenty years old, fair, pretty and human – raises his head from where he's pouring a full, delicately-blown glass for Sir William, of the Hastings pack, to see if another member of the club is requiring his attention.

Not that he's so very eager, to serve and please the habitués of this traditional gentlemen's club, to catch the eye of a wolf and perhaps be taken on as a promising protegé, by a wealthy and supernatural patron. Or not by just any old wolf, anyway: he has his eye on a particular one, and nothing else'll please him, tonight.

He was less fussy when he took the job on, it's true. A good-looking young human freedman, in a service job like this one, where the clientèle have a multitude of little extra jobs and favors they want doing, and aren't stingy with the tips when your performance exceeds any stipulations they might make, does well to cast his net wide. It's not as if he doesn't have a fancy for wolves in the first place – he wouldn't have taken on the job in the first place, otherwise. Not given what his pal Scott had to tell him about it, about wandering hands and indecent suggestions and hot dark eyes, smirks and low growls as you passed by a chair and summonses for intimate massages.

He hadn't been worried. Truth to tell, he'd been excited by the notion. And the salary was damn good, and a Christmas bonus too, not to speak of the tips.

All very well, being free, and his Dad a respected man of the law in the human community. It doesn't make them _rich_ : and money's the thing, if you're after an actual education. Which Stiles is.

The first weeks had been fun, learning the job, all the tricks and tips the long-servers could give him, what old so-and-so liked when he wanted a bite to eat with his whisky-and-soda, how to brush a pelt in the direction of the nap when the Hoyte pack members were in wolf form and ready to set out for the middle of the month moon run, wanting a bit of grooming beforehand. And fun in other ways too, because he'd been new, and plenty of the clientèle took an interest in a new member of staff. Especially a pretty one.

And to be honest, he'd put it about a bit and not put up much resistance with most comers who took a bit of a fancy to him, provided they weren't tight with the odd guinea or two, and weren't after anything too outré. Barring any who were old enough to make him feel uncomfortable, or as if he might need a bathchair and smelling salts to hand in case it all got a bit much for them – and God knew, wolves aged well enough, handsome bastards, there were precious few he found unacceptable as partners in a bit of fun.

That was the first weeks, the first couple of months, though. Things are a bit different now. Now, his eye has settled on someone, he's firmed up his fancy, and other candidates for the odd amorous encounter, a furtive fumble in the mists and steam of the sauna room of the club, are just not satisfactory in the same way that they were before. He's got much more fussy, lately. And it's very frustrating.

Because Bran Cornick, Alpha of the Cornick pack, doesn't seem to notice that Stiles is alive. (Or that he has a very nice pert arse, or that he leans over a little further than necessary when pouring his claret, or that he makes sure to be on duty during Cornick's usual days and times for visiting the club, even if it means swapping shifts with someone else or working a double if necessary,) And it's Cornick that Stiles has taken a fancy to – a very perverse fancy, considering how oblivious he is – and now that he's noticed and been attracted by the damned oblivious wolf, he can't seem to shift his attention elsewhere. Has been thinking about him night and day, lately, truth be told.


	2. I had not intended to love him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles knows damn well seducing Bran Cornick wouldn't be a good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Jane Eyre.

Not that he ain't worth thinking about, in fact. Cornick looks about twenty-seven, young to be an alpha. But the whisper is that he's much older than he looks, and more powerful too - more powerful than even an alpha. In the running to be Marrok, some say, which Stiles doesn't even rightly know what that is. A thin, fairish slip of a fellow, soft-spoken, pretty but really nothing to write home about compared to most wolves. Except. Except that he steps into a room and everyone feels it, human and wolf both.

He's fair - which seems to be unusual in wolves. Thick fair hair, grey eyes, five feet ten or so. His shoulders are strong, but not the shoulders of a bull or a bricklayer , a hod-carrier on a building site. He _does_ have all the fancypants highly educated refinement of a well-bred public-school educated werewolf. His torso's not so thickly muscled it lacks refinement: his hips are narrow, and his thighs lean and strong. Under perfect tailoring, of course.

Stiles has been taking notes.

Cornick is beautiful, yes, then. Stiles would never have sat up and paid attention in the first place otherwise. But it's not only that, and not even mostly that, he thinks. It's much more about something he thinks he sees brief instantaneous flashes of – in Cornick's' manner, in his quick soft voice, the voice he makes his very courteous requests of club staff in. He's the alpha in a powerful pack of his own, far away on the East Coast. But he's also cousin to the Hales, including the pack Alpha, Peter Hale. (Hale having grandfathered him into the club, approved his nomination, after a manner of speaking.) Of course that makes him second cousin to the Hale beta Derek Hale, and that does him no favours in Stiles' eyes. 

He has a history with Derek: not that he would usually look at a beta. But few humans are foolish enough to underestimate a wolf merely because of his status. Alphas are thin on the ground by necessity, being restricted to one per pack as a matter of tradition, physiology and supernatural process. But a beta can do plenty damage, if provoked, not that anyone would ever be fool enough to deliberately provoke a wolf.

But never mind that. Stiles puts away any thought of Derek, firmly. He's learned to practise that, this past summer. But Cornick being around, that makes it easier.

Cornick is strong, and dangerous, Stiles doesn't kid himself on that issue. But that isn't all he is, Stiles can sense it, feels it with every move made and every word out of that rather beautiful mouth. He feels himself, and it's reinforced by the opinion and testament of the rest of the club staff, that Cornick is not only a wolf, but a wolf and a _gentleman_ , all the way through. And not only a gentleman as a matter of privilege and birth, but rather in the sense of refinement, a sense of duty and honor, _noblesse oblige._ His civility and charm come from a natural sweetness and gentleness, Stiles is sure of it.

Cornick seems eminently _corruptible_ , that is what he means. He seems shockable, and as if Stiles could show him a thing or two he's never seen before, and you don't often find that with wolves.

And what Stiles wants, Stiles has become accustomed to getting. If not due to a spoilt and privileged life – he's freed, true, but his old grandad was only a cobbler immigrated from Poland via a couple of generations in London, leaving a couple of businesses down the East End, freed and given a handsome monetary present in youth after he carried his employer home from a moon run when he'd broken his hip taking a flyer over a wide canyon, having over-estimated even wolf agility and strength.

But what his station in life doesn't automatically accord him, Stiles has become accustomed to going out and getting for himself. His old grandad was a grafter, and has passed on the trait. And his Dad, born free into modest circumstances, took that and added on a bit of ducking and diving that added to the family coffers, as well as standing for public office as county sheriff.


End file.
